N3KZ Repeater System

The Club’s repeater system was installed and continues to be maintained by former Club Trustee WN3A. Although the system signs Club callsign, N3KZ, it is privately owned. WN3A owns the repeater hardware and performs the majority of the construction and maintenance of the system. The repeater system and the Club are independent entities. Neither share monetary funds with the other. All Club members are given free use of the system. However, supporters of the repeater system are not necessarily members of Club. Membership in the Club is open to students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the University of Pennsylvania. The repeater system is open for use by all amateurs.

Being a wide-coverage system subject to a large volume of traffic, there are several policies which help maintain equitable access to the system. Members are given priority on the system at all times. Non-members are welcome to use the system, but we ask that they keep in mind that they are guests, and that other amateurs, especially members, may be waiting to use the system. During drive time and during adverse weather especially, we ask that non-members keep their QSO lengths reasonable and give way to member and priority traffic. For more details on system policies, see Repeater Etiquette and Network Policies.

Because of its wide geographic coverage area, many amateurs use the system as a means of keeping in touch with other amateurs across distance. This is one of the primary objectives of a system of this type: to provide communications between stations that otherwise would be unable to communicate on a local standalone repeater. Many transient non-members use the system in this manner when traveling through the coverage area, or for keeping weekly skeds with friends out of their area. Non-members are welcome to use the system for this purpose. However, we ask that non-members avoid tying up the system for lengthy periods of time, especially if their QSO could instead be carried out on a simplex channel or on a local-coverage repeater. As always, emergency traffic has priority above everything else.